grizzled man in a cap and leather apron as themule between the traces of his cart snorted and kicked. “What the bloody ’ell ye doin’?”
Sebastian kept running.
One behind the other, Sebastian and the drab-coated man raced through soaring, catacomblike arches, the bricks furred with soot and mold and perpetual dampness. They sprinted down dark tunnels of warehouses tenanted by wine sellers and coal merchants, and up dimly lit passages off which opened stables that reeked of manure and dirty straw, where cows lowed plaintively from out of the darkness.
“Who the hell are you?” Sebastian shouted as the man veered around a rotten water butt, toward the dark opening of a narrow staircase that wound steeply upward.
“Who?”
Without faltering, the man clambered up the stairs, Sebastian at his heels. Round and round they went, only to erupt into a steeply sloping corridor paved with worn bricks and lined with milk cans.
Breathing hard and fast, the man careened from side to side, upending first one milk can, then another and another, the cans rattling and clattering as they bounced down the slope like giant bowling pins, filling the air with the hot splash of spilling milk.
“God damn it,” swore Sebastian, dodging first one can, then the next. Then his boots hit the slick wet bricks and his feet shot out from under him. He went down hard, slamming his shoulder against a brick pier as he slid back down the slope and the next milk can bounced over his head.
He pushed up, the leather soles of his boots slipping so that he nearly went down again. He could hear the man’s running footsteps disappearing around the bend up ahead.
Panting heavily now, Sebastian tore around the corner and out a low archway into the unexpected sunlight of the open air. He threw up one hand to shade his suddenly blinded eyes, his step faltering.
The lane stretched empty and silent before him.
The man was gone.
After leaving Carlton House, Hero spent the next several hours at a bookseller’s in Westminster, where she selected several items, one of which proved to be very old and rare. Then, sending her purchases home in the charge of a footman, she directed her coachman to the British Museum.
It was at an exhibition of Roman sarcophagi at the British Museum that Hero had first met Gabrielle Tennyson some six years before. Initially, their interaction had been marked more by politeness than by cordiality. Both might be gently born, well-educated women, but they belonged to vastly different worlds. For while the Jarvises were an ancient noble family with powerful connections, Gabrielle Tennyson came from a long line of barristers and middling churchmen—gentry rather than noble, comfortable rather than wealthy.
But with time had come respect and, eventually, true friendship. Their interests and ambitions had never exactly coincided: Gabrielle’s passion had all been for the past, whereas Hero’s main focus would always be the economic and social condition of her own age. Yet their shared willingness to challenge their society’s narrow gender expectations and their determination never to marry had forged a unique and powerful bond between them.
Now Hero, much to her mingling bemusement and chagrin, had become Lady Devlin. While Gabrielle…
Gabrielle was dead.
The bells of the city’s church towers were just striking three when Hero’s coachman drew up outside the British Museum. She sat with one hand resting casually on the carriage strap, her gaze on the towering portal of the complex across the street as she listened to the great rolling clatter and dong of the bells swelling over the city.
Built of brick in the French style with rustic stone quoins and a slate mansard roof, the sprawling mansion had once served as the home of the Dukes of Montagu, its front courtyard flanked by long colonnaded wings and separated from Great Russell Street by a tall gateway surmounted by an octagonal lantern. She watched a man and a woman
Sebastian kept running.
One behind the other, Sebastian and the drab-coated man raced through soaring, catacomblike arches, the bricks furred with soot and mold and perpetual dampness. They sprinted down dark tunnels of warehouses tenanted by wine sellers and coal merchants, and up dimly lit passages off which opened stables that reeked of manure and dirty straw, where cows lowed plaintively from out of the darkness.
“Who the hell are you?” Sebastian shouted as the man veered around a rotten water butt, toward the dark opening of a narrow staircase that wound steeply upward.
“Who?”
Without faltering, the man clambered up the stairs, Sebastian at his heels. Round and round they went, only to erupt into a steeply sloping corridor paved with worn bricks and lined with milk cans.
Breathing hard and fast, the man careened from side to side, upending first one milk can, then another and another, the cans rattling and clattering as they bounced down the slope like giant bowling pins, filling the air with the hot splash of spilling milk.
“God damn it,” swore Sebastian, dodging first one can, then the next. Then his boots hit the slick wet bricks and his feet shot out from under him. He went down hard, slamming his shoulder against a brick pier as he slid back down the slope and the next milk can bounced over his head.
He pushed up, the leather soles of his boots slipping so that he nearly went down again. He could hear the man’s running footsteps disappearing around the bend up ahead.
Panting heavily now, Sebastian tore around the corner and out a low archway into the unexpected sunlight of the open air. He threw up one hand to shade his suddenly blinded eyes, his step faltering.
The lane stretched empty and silent before him.
The man was gone.
After leaving Carlton House, Hero spent the next several hours at a bookseller’s in Westminster, where she selected several items, one of which proved to be very old and rare. Then, sending her purchases home in the charge of a footman, she directed her coachman to the British Museum.
It was at an exhibition of Roman sarcophagi at the British Museum that Hero had first met Gabrielle Tennyson some six years before. Initially, their interaction had been marked more by politeness than by cordiality. Both might be gently born, well-educated women, but they belonged to vastly different worlds. For while the Jarvises were an ancient noble family with powerful connections, Gabrielle Tennyson came from a long line of barristers and middling churchmen—gentry rather than noble, comfortable rather than wealthy.
But with time had come respect and, eventually, true friendship. Their interests and ambitions had never exactly coincided: Gabrielle’s passion had all been for the past, whereas Hero’s main focus would always be the economic and social condition of her own age. Yet their shared willingness to challenge their society’s narrow gender expectations and their determination never to marry had forged a unique and powerful bond between them.
Now Hero, much to her mingling bemusement and chagrin, had become Lady Devlin. While Gabrielle…
Gabrielle was dead.
The bells of the city’s church towers were just striking three when Hero’s coachman drew up outside the British Museum. She sat with one hand resting casually on the carriage strap, her gaze on the towering portal of the complex across the street as she listened to the great rolling clatter and dong of the bells swelling over the city.
Built of brick in the French style with rustic stone quoins and a slate mansard roof, the sprawling mansion had once served as the home of the Dukes of Montagu, its front courtyard flanked by long colonnaded wings and separated from Great Russell Street by a tall gateway surmounted by an octagonal lantern. She watched a man and a woman
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